Microsoft Fabric: An All-in-One Data Solution with AI Support

Microsoft Fabric is a SaaS data platform that brings together data integration, data engineering, data warehousing, data science, real-time analytics, and business intelligence in a single environment. All components operate on OneLake, a shared storage layer based on the open Delta Parquet format. Microsoft introduced Fabric in 2023.

This is exactly what Microsoft Fabric offers.

What is Microsoft Fabric?

Microsoft Fabric logo

 

Microsoft Fabric in One Sentence  

Microsoft Fabric is an all-in-one data platform that enables organizations to unlock the full potential of their data. It also provides AI and machine learning capabilities to help generate deeper insights from data.

The end-to-end platform combines data integration, data engineering, data warehousing, data science, real-time analytics, and business intelligence — all delivered as a cloud-based, data lake-centric SaaS solution.  

How Fabric Differs from Power BI and Azure Synapse

Power BI is one of several workloads within Microsoft Fabric and can also continue to be used independently. If you use Power BI today, that does not automatically mean you are using Fabric.

Azure Synapse Analytics covers some of the capabilities that Fabric provides today, but as a collection of Azure services that need to be configured individually. Fabric brings these capabilities together in a SaaS offering with shared storage, shared governance, and shared capacity. For new projects, Fabric is the direction Microsoft is pursuing.

What Components Make Up Microsoft Fabric?

Microsoft Fabric components | Informatec

 

Microsoft Fabric brings together multiple workloads on a shared foundation. They all access the same storage and share the same capacity, governance, and access control framework.

  • OneLake - The Foundation

    OneLake is the central data lake used by all Fabric workloads. It is based on Azure Data Lake Storage Gen2 and stores data in the open Delta Parquet format. Each organization has exactly one OneLake — data is stored once and accessed by all workloads instead of being copied for each individual tool. Shortcuts also make it possible to connect data from other storage locations without moving it.

  • Power BI

    Power BI is used to analyze and visualize business data.

    It enables organizations to create and deploy interactive reports, dashboards, and data models. AI and Copilot capabilities provide additional support for data analysis.

  • Databases

    Databases provides operational and transactional databases within Microsoft Fabric.

    These include SQL Database and Cosmos DB, among others. Data from these systems can be connected directly to Fabric’s analytics capabilities.

  • Data Factory

    Data Factory is the data integration layer for ingesting, preparing, and transforming data. More than 200 native connectors and the familiar Power Query interface from Excel and Power BI significantly lower the barrier to entry.

  • Industry Solutions

    Fabric includes industry-specific data solutions tailored to the typical requirements of individual sectors — such as preconfigured data models and processing pipelines for healthcare or retail.

  • Real-Time Intelligence

    Real-Time Intelligence processes data as it is generated, including IoT sensor data, application logs, and clickstreams. The workload covers data ingestion, querying, visualization, and automated responses to defined events. The former Real-Time Analytics workload and Data Activator have been incorporated into Real-Time Intelligence.

  • Data Engineering

    Data Engineering is used to process and prepare large volumes of data.

    Data engineers can transform data using technologies such as Apache Spark, Python, SQL, and notebooks, preparing it for further analysis.

  • Data Science

    Data Science provides tools for machine learning, AI, and advanced data analytics.

    Using Python, Spark, and notebooks, data can be explored and machine learning models can be developed, tested, and deployed.

  • Data Warehouse

    Data Warehouse is used to store and analyze structured data.

    The data can be processed using familiar SQL queries and made available for reporting, analytics, and Power BI, for example. 

  • Fabric IQ

    Fabric IQ unifies business semantics across data, models, and systems. It includes ontology elements, Fabric Graph, data agents, operations agents, and semantic models. The workload is currently in preview and should therefore be planned with appropriate caution for production use cases.

  • Copilot

    Copilot is not a separate workload, but a platform-wide service: AI assistance embedded across the individual Fabric workloads — for example, to generate queries, transformations, or report content using natural language.

What Are the Benefits of Microsoft Fabric?

  • BenefitWhat This Means in PracticeParticularly Relevant For
    One platform instead of multiple toolsData integration, storage, analytics, and reporting in a single environment, without interfaces between separate productsOrganizations with organically grown, fragmented BI landscapes
    OneLake as shared storageData is stored once in the open Delta Parquet format and accessed by all workloads instead of being duplicatedTeams that currently maintain multiple copies of the same data
    SaaS instead of infrastructureNo servers and no cluster management; capacity is provisioned rather than operatedTeams without dedicated platform engineering resources
    Tight Power BI integrationReports access data in OneLake directlyExisting Power BI environments
    End-to-end governanceAccess rights, data lineage, and classification apply across the entire platformRegulated industries, healthcare, and the public sector
    Foundation for AI applicationsPrepared and documented data as a foundation for Copilot, RAG, and machine learningOrganizations with concrete AI initiatives

Introduction to Microsoft Fabric

Microsoft Fabric in comparison

Fabric, Databricks, and Snowflake address similar challenges but with different areas of focus. The choice depends less on the technology itself and more on the skills available within your organization and where your data is currently stored.

  •  Microsoft FabricDatabricksSnowflakeAzure Synapse
    ModelSaaS, integrated suiteLakehouse platform, PaaSCloud data warehouseCollection of Azure services
    StorageOneLake, Delta ParquetDelta LakeProprietary, with support for open formatsAzure Data Lake Storage
    Licensing ModelCapacity (F-SKU)Consumption-based (DBU)Consumption-based (credits)Per service
    BI IntegrationPower BI included nativelyVia third-party toolsVia third-party toolsPower BI integration
    StrengthIntegration, low barrier to entry, Microsoft ecosystemData engineering and ML for very large data volumesData sharing, cloud neutralityExisting Azure environments
    Barrier to EntryLowHighMediumMedium to high
    Typical Use CaseConsolidating an organically grown BI landscapeML platform for data science teamsCross-platform data warehouseExisting Synapse usage

How Much Does Microsoft Fabric Cost?

Microsoft Fabric is licensed on a capacity basis. You purchase a capacity with a defined level of compute power that is shared across all workloads — rather than paying per user or per service.

  • The Capacity Model (F-SKUs)

    Fabric capacities are called F-SKUs and are named according to their size: F2, F4, F8, and so on up to F2048. They can be purchased on a pay-as-you-go basis — billed hourly and pausable at any time — or as reserved capacity with a term-based discount. Additional costs include OneLake storage and, depending on the type of usage, Power BI user licenses.

    Microsoft publishes the latest prices in its official pricing overview. Prices vary by Azure region.

  • What Is a Capacity Unit?

    A Capacity Unit (CU) is the compute unit used to measure the performance of a Fabric capacity. The SKU name indicates the number of units: F2 provides two Capacity Units, while F64 provides 64. All workloads within an environment share this capacity — which means that compute-intensive data processing can slow down reports if the capacity is undersized.

  • Cost Drivers Companies Often Underestimate

    In practice, three factors cause the most surprises:

    Capacity sizing. If the capacity is too small, performance suffers; if it is too large, you pay unnecessarily on an ongoing basis. Without load testing during the proof of concept, estimating the right size is largely guesswork.

    Idle capacity. Pay-as-you-go capacities continue to incur costs even when nothing is running — unless they are paused. Automating shutdowns during nights and weekends can quickly pay for itself.

    Power BI licenses. Above a certain capacity size, reports can also be consumed by users without their own Pro license. Below this threshold, individual user licenses are still required — which can significantly affect the overall cost calculation.

Who Is Microsoft Fabric Suitable For — and Who Is It Not?

  • Fabric Is a Good Fit If:

    • Your data preparation currently spans multiple separate tools and you want to consolidate them
    • Power BI is already in use and the underlying data preparation has become difficult to manage
    • Your organization already works within the Microsoft ecosystem (Entra ID, Microsoft 365, Azure)
    • You need a data foundation for AI applications but do not have a dedicated platform engineering team
    • Governance and traceability need to apply consistently across the entire platform

  • Fabric Is Less Suitable If:

    • You deliberately want to remain cloud-neutral or pursue a multi-cloud strategy
    • Your primary focus is on very large machine learning workloads for which specialized platforms offer greater control
    • Your data volumes and requirements are small enough that a single database combined with Power BI is sufficient
    • Regulatory requirements require data to be stored outside the available Fabric regions

How Do I Get Started with Microsoft Fabric?

For an initial introduction, Microsoft’s free trial is sufficient: it provides trial capacity that allows you to explore the workloads without any cost risk.

For a production rollout, a different sequence has proven effective. We recommend starting with an assessment of the existing data landscape, deriving a target architecture from it, and then implementing a single business case as an MVP before rolling out the platform more broadly. This approach keeps risk and initial investment low while delivering a reliable result at an early stage.

Microsoft Fabric Consulting and Implementation

Frequently asked questions about Microsoft Fabric

Microsoft Fabric is a SaaS analytics platform covering the entire data workflow - from data ingestion through transformation and real-time processing to analysis and reporting. All workloads run on a shared compute and storage model, with OneLake as the central data lake in the open Delta Parquet format. Microsoft introduced Fabric in 2023.

No. Power BI is one of several workloads within Microsoft Fabric. Fabric additionally includes Data Factory, Data Engineering, Data Warehouse, Data Science, Real-Time Intelligence, Databases and Fabric IQ. Power BI also remains available on its own - using Power BI today does not mean you are using Fabric.

More about Microsoft Power BI

Not necessarily. Fabric pays off when data preparation, storage and analysis currently run across several separate tools and you want to consolidate that landscape. If you use Power BI purely for reporting on data that is already prepared elsewhere, you can carry on without Fabric. The value comes from the complexity behind the reports, not from the number of reports.

Microsoft Fabric is a standalone SaaS offering with its own portal, but it is billed through Azure capacities and integrates closely with Azure services such as Azure Machine Learning and Microsoft Purview. Technically, OneLake is built on Azure Data Lake Storage Gen2. Fabric is therefore not an Azure service in the classic sense, but firmly anchored in the Azure ecosystem.

Microsoft Fabric is licensed by capacity rather than per user. You book a capacity (F-SKU) with a defined amount of compute that all workloads share - either pay-as-you-go, billed hourly and pausable, or as reserved capacity at a discount. OneLake storage and, depending on how it is used, Power BI licences come on top. Current prices are published in Microsoft’s official pricing overview.

Microsoft offers a free trial with a 60-day trial capacity, allowing you to explore Fabric workloads without any cost risk. A paid capacity is required for production use. If you already use Power BI, reports can continue to be consumed under your existing Power BI licenses — however, the other Fabric workloads require a capacity.

A capacity unit (CU) is the compute unit in which the performance of a Fabric capacity is measured. The SKU name states the number: F2 provides two capacity units, F64 provides 64. All workloads in an environment share that capacity - which is why a compute-heavy data preparation job can slow down reports if the capacity is sized too tightly.

Fabric contains a data lake, but it is considerably more than that. The storage layer is called OneLake, is built on Azure Data Lake Storage Gen2 and uses the open Delta Parquet format. The analytics workloads sit on top of it, from data integration through to visualisation. Each organisation has exactly one OneLake - data is stored once and read by all workloads.

Fabric is an integrated SaaS suite with native Power BI integration and a low barrier to entry, licensed through capacities. Databricks is more strongly geared towards data engineering and machine learning on very large datasets and is billed by consumption. Snowflake positions itself as a cloud-neutral data warehouse platform with strong data sharing. In practice the choice depends less on technology than on the skills available in house.

Data Factory in Microsoft Fabric provides connectors for SAP HANA, SAP BW and SAP tables. Where data volumes are high or only changes should be transferred, additional tooling is often used. Which route fits depends on your SAP version, licensing and the required refresh frequency.

More about our SAP Consultancy

Microsoft announced Fabric in May 2023 and made it generally available in November 2023. Since then Microsoft has continued to develop the platform: workloads are added, renamed or merged. Recent examples are the new Fabric IQ workload and the consolidation of Real-Time Analytics and Data Activator into Real-Time Intelligence.

Microsoft offers two role-based Fabric certifications: DP-600 for the Fabric Analytics Engineer Associate, with a focus on semantic models, data preparation, and analytics, and DP-700 for the Fabric Data Engineer Associate, with a focus on data integration and data processing. Informatec is a Microsoft Certified Training Partner and provides training delivered by certified instructors.

Explore Our Microsoft Training Courses

Data Activator no longer exists as a standalone component. Its capabilities - monitoring data streams and automatically triggering actions on defined conditions - have moved into the Real-Time Intelligence workload. The former Real-Time Analytics workload was likewise renamed to Real-Time Intelligence.

Updated: 01.09.2026